


My Demons Know How to Swim

by I_am_a_Ruin



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bulimia, Depression, Eating Disorder, Heavy Angst, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Misunderstandings, Pidge seems cruel but she's just upset, Realistic, Shiro really is trying to do the best for his team, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Suicide Notes, binge/purge cycles, for real this is so heavy, overdose attempt, trigger warning, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 16:16:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15222932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_am_a_Ruin/pseuds/I_am_a_Ruin
Summary: It wasn’t like this was the first time he’d considered this. It appealed to him so much. He daydreamed about it. His family already thought he was dead so it wasn’t like it’d be this huge fucking loss for them. It must be nice on his mama’s bank account to finally not have to be paying for those expensive antidepressants and all the other meds and therapy Lance’s mental health required.





	My Demons Know How to Swim

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to be very up front about what kind of story this is.  
> It is based on personal experience. The anniversary is coming up in a few months and I'm frankly using this story to cope and to hopefully reach people who think this is something that is an escape, a good idea. It's not.  
> I do not shy away from the details.  
> Some events were obviously altered to fit the characters and their location and the show itself.  
> Please read those warnings and proceed with caution. Keep yourself safe folks.

The others had invited him to hang out with them at the space mall, but lately, Lance just really wasn’t feeling group interactions. It was so easy to wave off their concern with ‘I just a need a full self-care day.’ 

It wasn’t a total lie, either. He’d pulled out all the stops first thing in the morning. The hardest part had been getting out of bed. Lately his motivation was so bad. He knew his depression was flaring up, despite medicine intervention. He mostly just tried to soldier through it. They were defending the universe, he didn’t have time for depression.

He put on one of his favorite pop playlists on the little device Pidge had put together for him and went to town on his legs. He prided himself on baby-smooth, soft skin. And that meant no gross, prickly hair. He used some of the oils he had been saving up on too, rubbing them into his skin and letting his face mask set. 

He got out of the shower and tied a robe around himself before settling in for a movie marathon. He snacked for a few hours on foods Hunk had stocked up on for meals later. He wanted to feel bad about it, but he just let himself stay distracted. It wasn’t until he was in the bathroom with his fingers down his throat that things took a turn downhill. 

The whole binging/purging thing was sort of a new development in his life. Frankly, he was terrible at the purging part even though it was the thing that gave him the most relief. The food was more a mindless activity. Purging released so much anxiety and self-hate. At least for a few minutes. It gave him some other strong self-hate with the disgusting factor of puking everywhere. It was sort of terrible for his skin, for one thing. And for another he always had saliva and chunks of food in a slippery sleeve down his arm and it was all just icky. 

After a few more repeats of this cycle, getting more up with each purge, Lance finally spread out on his bedroom floor, searching through the movie options on his gaming console. There weren’t a lot, just some Pidge had managed to gather from some of the planets they’d been to and had gotten around to programming from Earth. It was a long process. The movie he turned on he hardly paid attention to because those voices in his head were really going crazy for some reason. 

He was being shamed for everything under the Sun. Especially the purging. Especially his weight, which was steadily climbing despite all his bests efforts. And he knew it. His friends probably thought he was so gross. Besides, he was sort of the shittiest member on the team. Really. What did he even contribute? Everyone had their talents but did Lance have? Pidge said so herself, Lance was the fucking goofball. He wasn’t even funny anymore. Useless. He was so useless. He’d be doing them all a favor, really.

It wasn’t like this was the first time he’d considered this. It appealed to him so much. He daydreamed about it. His family already thought he was dead so it wasn’t like it’d be this huge fucking loss for them. It must be nice on his mama’s bank account to finally not have to be paying for those expensive antidepressants and all the other meds and therapy Lance’s mental health required. 

His heart squeezed at the prospect. Other times had been half-ass attempts he wasn’t all that serious about. Tonight felt different. This wasn’t training for hours on no meals hoping his body would just quit. This felt more like something he was really going to act on. Something that really could kill him. He wanted it to, which was a scary thought.

He poured his feelings out in a suicide note, still contemplating it. At the very least, it’d be nice to have this done when he wasn’t so exhausted and half gone with whatever the hell he was going through to write the kind of thing his teammates deserved. If they had to deal with his body and the potential (however unlikely) of some short term sadness from this, they might as well understand. Understand Lance just wanted them to be happy. He’d never wanted anything more.

He found himself sobbing at the end of the movie, nothing to do with the tragedies that had just happened on screen. He was scared to death and trembling. He wished so badly he had a hotline or something, anyone to talk to. However, he was in the middle of nowhere, with no cell service. Even Pidge hadn’t figured out that much (and she was trying very hard.)

He just felt so painfully alone, and it was getting late. Everyone would be in bed by now. The last thing he was going to do was wake someone up and be a burden. No, he was dealing with this on his own. 

He made an executive decision. He would put on  _ Dead Poets Society _ , a movie he had always wanted to watch and knew nothing about, and by the end of the movie, he would decide. He wasn’t more than twenty minutes in before he figured out a way to reach a conclusion. It settled his nerves. If someone in this movie successfully killed themselves, then he would too.

He was really enjoying the movie, getting wrapped up in these boys’ lives. It was old, but so good. This Robin Williams was particularly fantastic. 

And then the gunshot. A shaky peace settled deep in his bones. Lance was sobbing, but he didn’t think it was for himself. Seeing Neil there dead in his father’s office with his parents so distraught above him seemed unjust. His father was an asshole the entire time. His parents didn’t have the right. Lance finished the movie, feeling so numb. He couldn’t feel anything anymore. Normally the other boys’ pain would bring him to tears, but Lance just felt like a shell, finishing the movie because it was the last thing he was going to see. He might as well, right?

He should have been scared from how empty he felt. He had been so terrified just a few hours ago. Now Lance just felt ready. It was time.

He turned his console off and set the notebook open to his note at the head of his bed. A tall glass of water was fetched from the kitchen quietly so as not to disturb the other paladins. Then he settled at the foot of his bed with the open pill bottles on the stand next to his huge, buzzing fan. 

The pills had been weirdly easy to maintain for being in a foreign alien environment. Lance kept a small baggie of one of each on his person at all times back home just in case of some emergency. Coran had no problem replicating them.

The bottles were just containers he’d gotten from the kitchen and carefully labelled with milligrams and everything to keep him from getting confused. He had a total of three meds. 

His antidepressant- the Lexapro.

His medication with multiple purposes (namely short-term anxiety relief and for sleep. It wasn’t so great with the latter)- Hydroxyzine 

The migraine one- Butalbital

And he isn’t sure why, but he decides not to take the Butalbital. He doesn’t like the taste, for one. And for two, surely the Lexapro and Hydroxyzine will do the job. 

He popped small amounts at a time, four or five until they’re gone. And then he’s curled up in bed just waiting for it to end. Tears stained his face as he cried quietly. He wasn’t sure why anymore. He didn’t even feel sad. Just so goddamn tired. Still so pathetically scared. Scared of how alone he felt. So alone it made his chest ache. He wished he could just receive one of those bear hugs from Hunk and be held by someone until all these feelings went away. But no one could fix him. And if he was honest, he didn’t deserve to be.

*****

The room was hot and Lance felt groggy and confused when he woke up. Someone was in his doorway, telling him to wake up. Lance just blinked at them, trying to grapple with the fact that this was happening.

Shiro didn't see the empty bottles next to Lance' s enormous fan or the open yellow notebook at the foot of his bed that had words scribbled small and frantic on the page. Shiro was focused on getting Lance up and ready for training. 

Lance asked for just a minute to get ready and as soon as Shiro was gone, he was scrambling through his bags for the butalbital.

He didn't use last night's tactic. Last night he was foolish. Those two bottles weren't even full. He was just so desperate, tired... Pathetic.

Not now. Lance wasn’t going to wait and risk Shiro stopping him. Lance popped the whole bottle-full of pills into his mouth, gagging as the capsules melted on his tongue with the time it took to get them all down.

Lance had already forgotten about training, collapsing back in bed. He could just go to sleep like last night, only now he'd have succeeded. He wouldn't wake up. 

Except this time, his heart made itself known. It was just mildly uncomfortable at first; his heart beating a little too fast, like a panic attack. He could believe this was a panic attack. However, then the increasingly erratic pounding in his chest became the only thing he could focus on. His heart was thrumming in his whole body, pulsing in his head, in his wrists, behind his eyes. His stomach heaved and somehow he was off his bed, knelt on the floor. Lance's head was exploding with pain, retching and the sting of sour, powdery medicine burned his throat with the cold, horrid chill that stuck in the back. He wasn't even sure he was puking in his trash can because he couldn't see. Everything hurt too much for it to matter. He couldn't think past his head and heart screaming so loudly. 

Lance was almost certain someone was telling him to move, why are you puking on the floor but that faded. He needed to lie down. that would help. He was exhausted and lying down... it might help his heart stop speed-racing. 

The only thing he was conscious of was an icy wet chill drenching his face and chest. Lance gasped and became weirdly aware of how it was dripping down his sides and soaking his back. He wanted to move because he was lying in a puddle of frigid water but couldn't even begin to form the thought to get his body to do so. The splash happened again and, this time, it was almost comforting.

Someone was carrying him and crying so hard into his shoulder as he was dragged bodily. 

Lance still couldn't see, unable to even muster the energy to test if when he opened his eyes would he be able to see anything but blurry images and spots. But his heart had stopped trying to run a marathon. He wasn't sure his heart was even still there anymore but his vision was gone. He just had this sense of where he was and who was carrying him. 

Keith and Hunk were supporting under each arm with theirs around his waist. It was like this snapshot he got. As though living a normal conscious life was a film, but Lance's intake had been downgraded to Polaroids when he downed that third bottle.

After a few flashes of Polaroid memories, he fully blacked out.

When he came to, Shiro was discussing splashing him with more water. Lance took this moment to realize he was wet and freezing and not wearing the jacket he had on when he woke up this morning. All he could remember was cold wetness in his post sleep drowsiness. "Where's my jacket?"

Pidge turned to him in annoyance. "Maybe if you had responded, we wouldn't have had to take it off you because it got so drenched. That was a really awful thing to do by the way. You scared Hunk half to death. You aren't funny. Serves you right to be a little cold."

"What?"

"Pretending to be sick and then going all limp like you'd passed out." Pidge' s eyes rolled with her statement, fed up with Lance's antics.

Lance couldn't understand what Pidge was suggesting so he just mumbled an apology.

"You going to eat or just stare at the wall all day?" Pidge snapped back. 

Lance blinked, surprised by the lack of food in front of him. Not that he was hungry. He wasn't sure he was going to be able to keep anything down. He quickly realized they were expecting him to get the food himself, so he did. He was so exhausted when he got the kitchen though, he had to sit down on the floor just to not faint. Bringing the food back was even harder. 

No one spared him a glance, still pissed at him for his supposed prank. If they had, they'd have seen how ashen he was and how carefully he was walking just trying to not collapse. He was pretty sure he was swaying anyways.The food wasn't worth it because he couldn't eat anyways. He was having the worst time trying to stay awake. Every one kept nudging or snipping or worse at him to wake up. 

shiro made him go to training later that evening. No one listened to him swearing he was sick, getting increasingly furious that he was dragging on this "failed prank."

His head was splitting the more he tried to move and he couldn't stay on his feet for more than 20 minutes at a time. He knew Allura was pissed that he kept calling for a time out but he didn't have a choice. He was almost certain if he collapsed, he'd be left there.

All of it was the worst feeling he had ever felt in the entire world. 

His throat was still cold and burning. 

The rest of the day felt like sleep walking. If he moved to suddenly or even crouched down, he almost blacked out from the sudden rush of intense pain in his head. He felt floaty, and faint, and terrible. 

He slept even worse. He wasn’t sure what to do now. His brain just felt like a tornado had come through and cleared out all of his ideas. He didn’t feel so actively suicidal, but he didn’t feel relief about being alive either. He felt like a robot running through motions.

He made one promise to himself: He was not to tell the others. There was no point. It would just hurt them. And they probably wouldn’t believe him. Besides, what were they going to do about it? They were in fucking space. 

*****

Two days later, he broke that promise. He had done a lot of journaling the past two days. And even though he was so scared, everything was telling him he should tell someone. What if he had done real damage to his body? What if in Voltron when everyone was vulnerable and sometimes randomly intune with each other’s conscious, someone saw inside his head and realized what had been done? What if in the middle of a fight, his organs quit from the medical poisoning and he got someone killed?

He couldn’t exactly just sneak into a pod without anyone noticing. 

So he sat Shiro down and spat it out. It felt bad on his tongue, brought back the cold, burning feeling in his throat. That memory was giving him nightmares, haunting him with that feverish regurgitating of meds and a splitting headache. Everything felt wonky lately.

Shiro sat stiffly in front of him for several moments, just staring. 

“You… what?”

“I… OD’d.” Lance repeated softly, hands shaking harder.

He could see Shiro trying to piece this together, figure out how the hell he’d missed this, missed the signs, if Lance was lying, but why would Lance lie, and why was Lance telling him now?

“I’m sorry.” Lance breathed while Shiro stayed silent. He wasn’t sure if the man was in shock or just had no idea what kind of protocol to follow here.

“Okay. Okay. Um. You realize I’m going to have to tell the others about this?” Shiro’s voice was stiff and his hands were clenched in tight fists.

Lance wanted to be sick. He’d really hoped Shiro wouldn’t. But he just nodded. 

“And I want you sleeping in my room for the next few days. I don’t know how long… I just… Lance, I need to make sure you’re being safe. The lock on your door will be deactivated. You aren’t to be in any room but the bathroom alone.” Shiro said, and his sentences were stilted, slow like he was trying to think of everything to make sure Lance couldn’t try this again. 

“Your room will be searched, obviously. And… you can only have your bayard during training or battles. All weapons will be otherwise locked away for the time being.” Shiro sighed, and Lance realized numbly Shiro’s muscles were so tight because he was trying to not break down. Shiro was trying to keep it together long enough to get Lance through this moment.

“I understand, Shiro. I’ll do whatever you want.” Lance decided right that moment he was just going to roll with whatever Shiro threw at him. He was too tired to keep trying to do this on his own. And his way clearly wasn’t working anyways. 

This was just going to be his life now. He would have to deal with the others and the new, strict, annoying rules. But for now, he was going to let Shiro hug him because Shiro looked like he was going to fall apart if he didn’t in some way try to physically comfort the kid. And the hug wasn’t that bad. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm almost sure someone will ask this question "how could the others not notice he had overdosed?" so I'm answering this right now.  
> Honestly... I'm not sure. This is based on what happened to me. If you want the full story of why my parents didn't think that's what was going on, feel free to ask in the comments. I'm not shy about answering.  
> However, for the most part I will say, a lot of people don't want to believe that someone would go to those lengths. They want to find some other explanation for what they're seeing so they do.  
> Thank you for reading. Again, feel free to ask questions. Please be gentle with your comments though, as this is based on my life. It's obviously not going to be perfect or clean. It's just something for me to cope and I was encouraged to post it so I did.


End file.
